Immediately after the 2017 birth of her daughter Alexis Olympia, Williams knew something was wrong. In an interview with PEOPLE, she recounted a heavy coughing spell that reopened her c-section wound. After imploring a nurse for help, doctors soon discovered multiple blood clots, including one in her lungs. She was taken back into surgery and put on blood thinners.
Williams — who’s had blood issues in the past, including a pulmonary embolism in 2011 — told reporters in early 2019 that her “issues” with deep vein thrombosis are “not done. It’s just something I just have to do for pretty much probably the rest of my career. We’ll see. I’m always at the doctor. With DVTs, it’s very scary.”
She continued: “It’s incredibly frightening. I lay on the side of precaution as opposed to not.”
In January 2019, the decorated Olympic swimmer revealed he’d been diagnosed with testicular cancer.
The three-time Olympian and eight-time medalist explained he had been feeling unwell and visited a doctor because something “didn’t seem quite right.”
“At the very least, I still needed to get my flu shot so it couldn’t hurt,” Adrian wrote on Instagram. “After a few tests and visits with a specialist, I, unfortunately, learned that I have Testicular Cancer.”
“Life, like swimming the 100 free, can come at you hard and fast as you can’t always see who, or what, may be chasing you down,” he wrote.
He added that “on the bright side,” doctors caught his cancer early, and by February he was back in the pool, training as a hopeful for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Paralympian Amy Purdy called on her “prayer warriors” in late February 2019 when she revealed a “simple mechanical issue” with her prosthetic was actually a serious medical condition that has now left her with a heartwrenching decision to make.
The snowboarding champion — who experienced bacterial meningitis and lost her legs below the knees when she was 19 years old — was recently diagnosed with a “massive” blood clot after she felt pain in her left leg.
“I have been hit down multiple times in my life but this time by far has been the hardest,” Purdy said in an emotional message posted to Facebook. “I went from snowboarding 6 hours a day, working out & traveling the world to what I thought was just a simple mechanical issue with my left leg. When I entered the hospital this weekend with my leg cramping we found out that it’s a much bigger problem [than] that.”
The blood clot stretches from her hip to the bottom of her left leg, she explained, and likely developed due to how often she uses her prosthetics, which can amount to 12 to 18 hours a day.
“To complicate things even more I have a kidney transplant & a severe shellfish allergy which are both contraindicated in the procedures they do to fix these types of things,” Purdy wrote of the potential complications. “The contrast dye in the procedures can injure my healthy transplanted kidney which has been the biggest gift of my life and health. So there’s the risk that to try to save my leg, we are risking my kidney.”
She added, “Staying positive doesn’t seem easy at this time.”
Four months after revealing his second leukemia diagnosis in October 2018, the WWE Champion had some happy news: he was in remission.
“I am so grateful, I am so humbled, and I am so honored to announce this,” he shared. “The good news is I’m in remission, y’all!”
“So with that being said, the Big Dog is back!” he added.
The star was first diagnosed with cancer in 2008 when he was 22 years old but not long after, he was in remission.
Last October, however, the wrestler revealed during an episode of WWE Raw that his cancer had returned and he would be giving up his championship title and taking a leave of absence from the sport.
“The reality is my name is Joe and I’ve been living with leukemia for 11 years and unfortunately it’s back,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Because the leukemia is back, I can’t fulfill my role. I can’t be that fighting champion and I’m going to have to relinquish the universal championship.”
In early 2016, the Olympic figure skater received a brain tumor diagnosis for the third time. The diagnosis — a benign pituitary tumor — came after Hamilton overcame testicular cancer in 1997 and battled two previous brain tumors in 2004 and 2010.
“I have a unique hobby of collecting life-threatening illness,” the Stars on Ice cofounder told PEOPLE. “It’s six years later, and it decided that it wanted an encore.”
Six months later, he was shocked to learn that the tumor had shrunk. “I’ve said to so many doctors, ‘Have you ever heard of a craniopharyngioma shrinking without treatment?’ They go, ‘No.’ I go, ‘Ta-da!’ God is good,” he told PEOPLE.
The sportscaster was diagnosed with and recovered from cervical cancer in 2016 — all without going public.
Andrews revealed to Sports Illustrated’s The MMQB in January 2017 that she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and underwent a successful surgery to remove all traces of the disease.
Andrews learned she had cervical cancer the September prior, shortly after settling her $55 million lawsuit against the Nashville Marriott, where a stranger secretly filmed her in the nude. She says getting through the lawsuit toughened her up for her cancer diagnosis.
“After the trial everyone kept telling me, ‘You’re so strong, for going through all of this, for holding down a job in football, for being the only woman on the crew,’ ” Andrews said. “Finally I got to the point where I believed it too. ‘Hey, I have cancer, but dammit, I am strong, and I can do this.’ ”
Andrews’ oncologist told her that she needed surgery almost immediately, but the NFL on Fox sideline reporter stuck around for a game the next day, before flying out to Los Angeles to deal with her diagnosis.
Andrews eventually underwent surgery 17 days later, on Oct. 11, and told her doctor that she had to be back to health in time to cover that Sunday’s game. Two days after surgery, she was on a plane to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for a Packers game that weekend.
On Nov. 1, 2016, Andrews underwent a second procedure, and she learned 16 days later that she was all clear, and would not need radiation or chemotherapy.
The hockey player learned ahead of the 2017-2018 season that he had chronic myeloid leukemia after dealing with months of fatigue, and told PEOPLE in October 2018 that he expected it to be “at least” another year before he would be in remission.
But that month, he found out he was.
“It’s full molecular remission, and I feel really good,” he continued. “It was kind of the way the progression was happening the last few tests. When I told my wife, she was excited and got emotional.”
The last 13 months have been difficult for the Boyle family. Along with his treatment and diagnosis, doctors discovered that his 3-year-old son Declan had an extremely rare arteriovenous malformation in the jaw that required nearly a dozen operations and many nights in the hospital. But Declan is also doing well, and is “a normal kid again,” Boyle said.
Boyle told PEOPLE that the humanity he saw from the NHL and its fansmade the tumultuous year a little easier.
A few months after her wedding to skating partner Chris Knierim in 2016, as the pair’s star was on the rise, life threw a twist at Scimeca Knierim.
At the last competition of the 2015 to 2016 season, she started vomiting for hours on end with no clear cause in sight. Even having spent the bulk of her life as an athlete, she had never suffered any serious injuries or been under the knife.
It took several doctors visits and multiple trips to the emergency room to figure out what was going on. In the meantime, they were forced to withdraw from competition for the rest of the year. Alexa was eventually diagnosed with a rare, potentially fatal gastrointestinal condition. She underwent three surgeries and her weight whittled down to just 80 lbs. When she returned to the ice for the first time, she had to retrain her body.
“The moment I stepped back onto the ice after my surgeries, Chris had to hold me up,” she told PEOPLE. “I was not capable of standing on my own because of how weak and fragile my body was at that time.”
The couple made their comeback at the Four Continents Championships in 2017, where they placed seventh.
At age 35, the New York Mets star was forced to retire in October 2018 due to his battle with spinal stenosis.
The third baseman’s condition required multiple surgeries, and often left him in pain.
“I needed the baseball stuff and I needed the games for my body to finally tell me, ‘It’s not happening,’ ” Wright explained in a press conference announcing his retirement. “It’s not working. From everything the doctors have told me, there’s not going to be any improvement.”
He added: “Some days the pain could be moderate and manageable. Some days it was too much to be thinking about baseball. … It’s debilitating to play baseball.”
Wright hadn’t been on the active roster since May 2016, but he was reactivated and took his final at-bat on Sept. 29, 2018, in a sold-out game against the Miami Marlins.
After 15 years playing for the National Hockey League, Rick Nash announced in January 2019 that he’d be hanging up his skates.
The left winger — who has played for the Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers and Boston Bruins — retired from the sport of hockey due to concussion-related symptoms.
“Due to unresolved issues/symptoms from the concussion sustained last March, Rick Nash will be forced to retire from the game of hockey,” Nash’s agency, Top Shelf Sports Management, said on Twitter. “Under the advice of his medical team, the risk of further brain injury is far too great if Rick returns to play.”
“Rick would like to thank everyone who has supported him during this difficult time period,” the agency continued.
His most recent reported concussion was in March, while a member of the Bruins, ESPN reported. Previously, in 2013, Nash missed six weeks with the Rangers due to concussion symptoms.
In January 2019, 101 ESPN announced the news that former St. Louis Cardinals player and popular sports radio host Chris Duncan would be stepping away from the program due to his ongoing health crisis after being diagnosed with cancer.
“Dunc will be taking a permanent leave from 101 ESPN to continue his fight against cancer and focus on health. If you pray, please keep him in your prayers. If you don’t, keep him in your thoughts,” a rep for the station wrote on Twitter.
According to Sports Illustrated, Duncan was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor, first in 2012. In a tragic coincidence, Duncan’s mother — Jeanine Duncan — also had glioblastoma, and died the following year at 64, the outlet reported.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Duncan’s “The Turn” cohost Anthony Stalter said during the show on Jan. 7 that the former athlete is “still fighting. He’s still fighting brain cancer. He’s still fighting this tumor.”
Duncan took a temporary leave of absence from his radio show in March of last year, according to the Post-Dispatch, to resume treatment for the cancer, which had returned with another tumor on his brain.
The baseballer was part of the Cardinals’ 2006 World Series team, according to USA Today, and was with the team from 2005 to 2009. His father is famed pitching coach Dave Duncan.
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